Hiding in the Light
by AdAbolendam
Summary: *Major Spoilers for "Meet the New Boss" 4x02* In twelve hours, someone had replaced his solid foundation with shifting sand before he even realized it was happening. How had this happened? What was he not being told?
1. Chapter 1

**Seeing as we have two weeks until we find out what happens next, I decided to use the time to speculate wildly. This is the result:**

* * *

Phil Coulson sat with elbows on knees on the edge of the black leather couch that he had shared with May not twelve hours earlier.

A lot could change in half a day.

In twelve hours, Zephyr One could travel from Hawaii to Paris, with a stop-over in Miami for lunch. Twelve hours was enough time to break a terrorist suspect through persuasive interrogation. It was long enough to tag and index a new Inhuman asset and have them back at home in time for dinner. And now, Coulson knew, twelve hours all the time it took for a sane, battle-hardened agent to descend into madness and to vanish without a trace.

 _"This room, does it seem…?"_

 _"Like it was decorated by someone who needs to unclench?"_

It was just twelve hours ago.

She had seemed… normal. Better than normal.

May had found her niche training the new Strike Team. They feared and respected her. She moulded them into a cohesive, effective unit. It gave her purpose.

The rug may have been pulled out from all of them when Daisy left and Coulson stepped down as Director, but in spite of everything, May had landed on her feet. Out of every one on his old team, she was the one person he knew he did not have to worry about.

Until he did.

 _"I won't let them take you."_

She meant it. He knew that she meant it. She would do anything it took to stop them from hurting him or anyone else. But there was no "them." No infiltration. No unseen enemy. Just a pestilent fear that had run roughshod over the conduits in her brain, frying synapses as it went.

Two minutes after that, she had punched him in the gut.

Everything after that was a surreal montage. He watched, feeling like a stranger in someone else's body, as the new director lifted The Calvary herself by the shirt collar and slammed her skull against a brick pillar. He felt himself wince as she fell. In unconsciousness, her face relaxed into a smile.

 _Melinda May was insane._

He had repeated the phrase over and over in his mind, willing it to sink in, to mean something. When the reality of the situation finally sunk in, he felt shaky. Someone had replaced his solid foundation with sand without him even realizing it was happening.

 _"What treatment are you implementing? How long will—_

Coulson was desperate and he knew it. Just as he knew what the Director would say before the words left his mouth.

 _Classified._

It wasn't until that moment that he realized how much he had given up by handing SHIELD over to someone else.

He had his reasons. After last year, he did not have the faith in himself that he once did. The evidence against his aptitude for leadership was fairly damning.

May still objected to his decision to step down, even after President Ellis had "strongly advised" him that it was the best course of action.

"You're not handing the keys to the kingdom back to Fury, Phil," she had reminded him. "We have no idea who the United States government will appoint or what their agenda might be."

It was the question of what that agenda was that had Coulson perched on the couch outside of the lab at one in the morning, waiting for Simmons to meet him. Because the Director's excuses for keeping him in the dark did not add up.

 _"When it comes to May and Daisy, you can't be objective."_

Jeffery was a politician. A master manipulator.

Coulson had watched with bemused fascination as he had wowed the representatives from Capitol Hill, diverting their attention from the crisis in the containment facility and spinning it into a photo-op with the quinjet in the background. He had even allowed himself to be finessed by the Director's flattery and over-zealous comradery into playing tour-guide.

But Jeff had over-played his hand this time.

 _"You can't be objective."_

Objectivity was more than an asset to an agent, it was the bedrock of their character, the infrastructure that supported their moral compass. Jeffrey was questioning his ability to see the situation objectively because it would have stopped a normal agent in their tracks.

But Coulson never was objective. Not with May. Not with Daisy. And the Director knew it.

And he assigned him to Daisy's case anyway.

Jeffrey didn't give a goddamn about objectivity. He wanted Coulson to stop asking questions.

 _Why?_

 _What had he done with May?_

"Sorry it took so long."

Coulson jumped off the couch like his ass was spring-loaded.

"I looped the camera feeds for this part of the hallway," Jemma Simmons continued, speaking in a rushed whisper. "We have a bit of time before anyone realizes something's amiss."

"What have you found out?" He asked. "Is she on-base?"

Jemma shook her head.

"No. She's not in any of the containment modules and she was never brought to the lab."

"Where the hell would he take her?" Coulson wondered aloud. "The best solve for this is the memory machine. Fitz has talked about reverse-engineering it to—

"Dir—Agent Coulson," Simmons interrupted. "I'm not sure that would work in this case. As much as I hate to admit it, whatever caused this transformation is quite outside of the realm of anything either I or Fitz have an explanation for."

Coulson ran a hand over his face.

"Simmons, you and I both know that you are the person that is most qualified to help her," he said. "You have experience with things no one else on the planet has seen before. The Director knows that. Why wouldn't you be the first person he would bring her to?"

"I'm afraid the situation might be more complicated than either of us have realized, Coulson."

Simmons swallowed and presented him with her smartpad. The screen displayed the log of the aircraft that had entered and left the base over the last day. There was only one entry of a flight leaving after May's disappearance. It was the quinjet that departed six hours ago carrying the representatives from Congress.

"You think he put her in the jet _with_ the tour group?" Coulson asked doubtfully. "Jemma, you didn't see her. She was not in her right mind. The Director is obsessed with 'optics.' It's not exactly good PR for SHIELD to put a mentally compromised agent in an enclosed space with the people who are responsible for re-instating our agency."

She did not reply. Her eyes darted away from his when he tried to look at her.

"What?" He asked.

With a quick finger-swipe, Simmons opened a new window on the pad that displayed a video recording of the hanger-bay. The shot was grainy and moved in jerks, frame-by-frame.

"Someone tried to delete this off of the monitoring system," Simmons explained. "It took Fitz a couple of hours to restore it. It was taken right before the representatives arrived in the hanger."

Coulson blinked, trying to make out the images he was watching. Two figures dressed in black tactical gear darted in stop-motion across the hangar deck, carrying a white board between them. As they moved up the ramp to the quinjet, the image resolved enough so that he could see that the board was a gurney supporting a woman strapped down in a straight-jacket.

The last frame before they disappeared into the belly of the jet showed a clear shot of the woman. Simmons stopped the feed and they stared at May's face. Her lips were parted in a scream and her eyes were blown wide-open in terror.

Coulson felt the blood leave his face.

"Those weren't senators," he stated unnecessarily.

"I think that would be a safe assumption, Sir," Simmons whispered.

"Who the hell is the Director working for?" Coulson asked.

"I don't know," Simmons replied. "But it's not for SHIELD."

* * *

 **AN: I don't really _want_ to believe that Director Jeffrey is a bad guy. But if he's not, he needs to have a really good explanation for putting May in a straight-jacket on the floor of a jet with a bunch of politicians that he is supposedly trying to convince that SHIELD is a legit agency. **

**I'm not the only one who thought that was weird, right?**


	2. Chapter 2

Jemma Simmons swallowed and pressed her eyes closer to the microscope, feigning concentration. She had seen Coulson enter the lab, trading pleasantries with some of the newer recruits. She continued to stare blindly into the tube when she felt heard him approach.

Steeling herself, she plastered on a mask of happy surprise to greet him.

"Hey, Jem," he greeted.

"Agent Coulson," she returned. "I hear you and Mack are heading out again on assignment."

"Yup," he said. "Wheels up in twenty. Just stopped by to say 'bye.' Never know how long the Director will have us in the field."

Simmons flushed at the mention of the Director.

"Well, it was good to see you again," she said.

Coulson pressed his back against the workspace and turned to face her so he could watch for eavesdroppers.

"Have you heard anything else?" He asked quietly.

"No," she returned. "And it's not exactly like I can ask. If the Director becomes even remotely suspicious, it'll will come up as a question in the morning's polygraph test."

"He trusts you, Jemma," Coulson assured her. "You've seen to that."

"He _scares_ me," Simmons confessed. "You've seen what he's capable of. It was frightening enough having him as a boss, but now knowing that he could be working against us?"

"I know," Coulson agreed. "But I can't do anything on my end. He's officially blocked me out and is sending me on mission to get me out of the way. You, on the other hand, have access to all his intel."

"Not all of it," she countered.

"Jemma."

Simmons looked up from the non-existent work she was pretending to be distracted by.

"Please," he whispered.

When finally she met his eyes, she knew she was screwed. He was projecting that damned guileless look of resolve that always made her follow his lead, no matter how asinine or suicidal the plan.

Jemma sighed.

Probing into May's disappearance could mean more than falling out of favour with the Director. It could mean the end of her career with SHIELD. But she was going to do it anyway. After all, it was Coulson's determined earnestness that had persuaded her to join his team in the first place. In some ways, it was the reason she was still here.

"I'll do what I can," she promised.

"Thank you, Jemma."

"Of course," she said. "It's May. She'd do the same for any of us."

Coulson nodded slowly.

"I'll see you soon."

Simmons responded with a tight-lipped smile and he left her alone.

"I hope so," she whispered to herself.

 _72 Hours Later_

"What is happening?"

"What's going on?"

"I don't know! There were reports of power outages in cities all over the globe. Whatever it was must be causing this."

"What could do that? Even an EMP would only-

"Quiet! Both of you!" Simmons yelled. "I can't feel her pulse."

* * *

 **Thanks for all of the comments, guys!**

 **I ended up writing the episode. I'm sure it's not even going to be close to the mark as far as what the writers have in mind, but it's fun to speculate!**

 **Next up: A global blackout, a timely intervention by AIDA, and hints of Director Jeffrey's endgame.**


	3. Chapter 3

Coulson's team had been gone almost a day when Shanghai's power grid failed. Over 24 million people were plunged into darkness and no one seemed to know why. Berlin went black an hour later, followed by Sydney, then Chicago. Major cities all over the globe blinked out like fairy lights in a Christmas tree with no discernible cause and no way to predict which metropolis would be targeted next.

When Rio and Los Angeles lost power within seconds of each other, President Ellis contacted the Director and enlisted SHIELD's help.

The upshot of the chaos was that Simmons did not have to worry about the Director looking over her shoulder while she and Fitz scrolled through the encrypted flight itinerary to track May's whereabouts.

"There!" Fitz exclaimed, pointing triumphantly at the screen.

"Houston, Texas?" Simmons asked. "How can you be sure?"

"Because," he started. "Look: The quinjet stopped in DC, as expected, but then it logged another two-hundred miles before it returned to the base. I pulled the feed from the flight data recorder. The jet was spotted as a blip on radar outside of Ellington Field, a joint military base near Houston, before the automatic cloaking could jam the signal. The pilot was asked to transmit authorization codes to flying in military airspace."

"How do you know they landed there?"

"Because it only takes thirty minutes to fly from Houston to the Playground, but, according to the logs, the quinjet landed two hours after they were tagged on radar over Ellington."

Simmons bit her lip.

"I don't know, Fitz," she hedged. "They could have stopped somewhere else along the way."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he said excitedly. "But remember what else is in Houston?"

He pulled up an image on the screen and Simmons's eyes widened in recognition.

"The third decommissioned Momentum Energy facility," Jemma exclaimed.

"That can't be a coincidence, right?" Fitz asked.

Simmons's eyes darted across the screen, looking for an answer that she knew she would not find.

"What could the Director be thinking, sending her to the same facility where they _make_ the energy cubes that held that—thing, ghost, incorporeal what-ever-it-was? That's what made her crazy to begin with!"

"I don't know," Fitz said. "But it can't be good. We should contact Coulson."

Simmons shook her head slightly.

"We can't," she muttered. "His team has been dispatched to Miami to get Yo-Yo to help with this blackout. Besides, there's no way to reach him without the call being monitored."

"Well, what can we do, Jemma?" Fitz asked. "I want to help May, but if it's just you and me infiltrating some sort of secret base, I don't exactly like our odds. Besides, I saw the footage. If May's under the influence of whatever this thing is, she won't be in a state to help us… What?"

Simmons grabbed the keyboard from him and scrolled through a list of files logged under the heading "Drug Trial: Hive Sway." Grinning, she clicked on one of the documents and a three-dimensional image of a molecule filled the screen.

"Do you remember this?" She asked.

"Yeah, it's an experimental atypical anti-psychotic," Fitz said. "Dopamine antagonist. But we couldn't even test it on Inhumans that were infected by Hive. I doubt it will work on May. Remember? All it did to the mice in lab tests was make them… pass out."

A look of realization dawned on his face.

"Exactly," Simmons smiled. "We still have some samples stored in the lab. How fast do you think it will take you to aerosolize it?"

"Couple of hours?" Fitz said.

"Perfect."

"There's still a matter of getting to Houston," Fitz reminded her. "Unless you've learned how to fly a quinjet without me noticing."

"Let me worry about that," Simmons said. "Meet me in the hangar bay in two hours. Loop the feeds. We need to move fast!"

* * *

"He's not answering!"

"Ring the doorbell again!" Simmons directed. "The sedative's wearing off. She starting to wake up!"

Fitz shifted his grip and jammed the button with his thumb.

"Come on, Radcliffe! Open up! It's Fitz and Simmons!"

Nothing.

"Holden!" He yelled again. "I know you're in—

Dr. Holden Radcliffe opened his front door to find Fitz and Simmons struggling to hold an unconscious woman between the two of them. A third figure clad in black tactical gear stood behind them with one hand resting on her sidearm.

"Fitz? Simmons?" Radcliffe sputtered. "What the hell…? Is that Agent May?"

"Yes," Simmons panted. "Dr. Radcliffe, can you please let us inside? She needs immediate medical attention."

With Radcliffe's help, Fitz and Simmons were able to manoeuvre May into the downstairs lab and place her on the operating table.

"Do you have a cardiac monitor?" Simmons asked.

"Yeah, over there," Radcliffe pointed to a darkened screen on a rolling platform in the far corner. "Can one of you tell me what is going on?"

Fitz rolled the heart monitor over to May's side and watched as Simmons placed the electrodes on her chest.

"I need to check her vitals," Simmons explained. "She nearly coded on the flight over. Her blood pressure was through the roof. I had to give her a sedative."

"What the hell happened to her?" Radcliffe asked. "And who are you?"

The third member of their rescue party had remained silent and out of the way.

"I'm just the pilot," she answered.

"Dr. Holden Radcliffe, meet Agent Piper," Fitz said. "Piper, Radcliffe. Agent Piper helped us rescue May from a laboratory in Texas."

"Doesn't SHIELD have entire tactical teams to do this sort of thing?" Radcliffe asked.

"This wasn't exactly a SHIELD-sanctioned op," Piper explained.

"What did they do to her there?"

"We don't know," Fitz answered. "But it seems like you were right about not trusting the new people running SHIELD."

Simmons activated the heart monitor and checked the leads.

"May was… exposed to some unknown agent that induced psychosis," Fitz continued. "The new Director shipped her off to a defunct energy facility to have her experimented on. So we went after her."

"We pumped a dopamine inhibitor into the air-ducts and it acted like a knock-out gas. Everyone in the lab was out in seconds."

"Except May," Piper added.

"She had some sort of hypo-manic episode," Simmons said.

"Started screaming her head off and throwing anything she could get her hands on," Fitz continued. "It was pretty scary."

"Piper restrained her," Simmons said.

"Just barely," Piper murmured.

"This is all my fault," Simmons moaned. "The bloody drug was experimental. It should have _stopped_ the psychosis, at least. I managed to administer a sedative, but… Oh God…" she trailed off.

The heart monitor display showed May's heartbeat at forty beats per minute and falling.

"Why is this happening?" Simmons demanded. "The sedative was wearing off! Why is her heart rate slowing down?"

The heart monitor let out a high-pitched whine and showed a flat line where May's heartbeat should have been.

"I need a defibrillator!" Simmons cried.

Radcliffe handed her the paddles and stood back from the table.

"Clear!"

May's body jumped at the electric shock and fell back to the table with a dull thunk.

The heart monitor's persistent wailing continued.

"Come on, May!" Simmons pleaded. "I'm not losing you!"

"Try it again!" Piper yelled.

Another shock.

May's head lolled to the side and the lights of the laboratory flickered. The heart monitor stopped whining and winked out. There was a moment of complete silence as Simmons, Fitz, Radcliffe and Piper stood blinking in the dark.

"What is happening?"

"What's going on?"

"I don't know! There were reports of power outages in cities all over the globe. Whatever it was must be causing this."

"What could do that? Even an EMP would only-

"Quiet! Both of you!" Simmons yelled. "I can't feel her pulse. I can't feel anything!"

Fitz activated the flashlight on his phone and aimed it at the table. Simmons looked as pale as May in the harsh white glow. Fitz felt his heart drop to his stomach. There was nothing she could do. Without electricity to power the defibrillator, there was no way to bring May back.

Simmons looked up at him.

"I have to crack her chest and perform cardiac massage."

"Are you crazy?" Radcliffe asked.

Fitz had to agree.

"It won't work, Jemma," he said. "She's too weak. The room's not even sterile! Even if you could restart her heart, she could get a massive infection!"

"I can't let her die, Fitz!"

"Perhaps I could help."

Four heads whipped around in the direction of the voice. The tall brunette that entered the lab wore a serene expression that was quite out-of-place amidst the chaos.

"AIDA," Fitz whispered.

* * *

 **Thanks again for all of the lovely comments! I apologize for any mistakes in this one. I'm not used to writing this fast!**

 **Still to come: Fitz has some apologies to make and Jemma faces off with The Director.**


	4. Chapter 4

The silence following AIDA's entrance and Fitz's acknowledgment was profound but short-lived.

"Who are you?" Piper asked.

"What do you mean, 'AIDA'?" Simmons demanded. "AIDA's just a digital interface!"

"Well, not anymore," Fitz said.

"Hello, Jemma Simmons," AIDA greeted. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you. Dr. Radcliffe has spoken very highly of you."

Simmons opened and closed her mouth, unable to make any reply other than a muted squeak.

"Okay, whoever-you-are," Piper interrupted, bringing them back to the present. "You said you could help May?"

"Yes," AIDA agreed. "My power source is independent of the electrical grid and was not affected by the blackout. I believe I can discharge the required energy to reinstate a normal cardiac rhythm."

"Wait! She—she wasn't designed for that," Radcliffe interjected.

"What do we have to lose? She's dying!" Fitz said.

"Do it!" Simmons commanded.

AIDA stood over the still, silent figure of Melinda May and placed her hands in textbook-perfect resuscitation position on her chest. In the darkened laboratory, the electric discharge from AIDA's palms was as blinding as a lightning strike.

"Did it work?" Fitz asked.

Jaw set, eyes trained on the eerily-still form of AIDA, Simmons reached across the gurney and placed two fingers on the side of May's neck. She sighed and felt her body crumple in relief as a feather-light pulse jumped beneath her touch.

"She's still with us," Simmons announced.

"Jemma! Look out!" Fitz yelled.

With her head turned to face the others, Simmons had not seen May's eyes spring open. Her own heart slammed against the walls of her rib-cage as May's hand clamped down on her arm.

"May!" She screamed.

May's eyes darted around the dark laboratory wildly. In the light of the camera phone, she seemed just as crazed as when she was taken from the base.

"Where. Am. I?"

Her words came out in a growl, punctuated by panicked breaths.

"May, it's alright," Simmons tried. "You're safe now. You're here with us. It's okay."

May's face slackened and relaxed.

"Jemma," she croaked. "What happened?"

"Are you feeling alright?" Simmons asked cautiously. "What's the last thing you remember?"

May groaned and swallowed before answering.

"Phil—Coulson, he wanted me to go to the lab. Something about blood-work… I can't remember…" she trailed off. "Where is he?"

"He's safe," Simmons assured her. "You need to rest. Will you give me a moment? I need to speak with Fitz. Agent Piper is here. She'll fill you in on the details."

Piper nodded her assent to Simmons and rolled up a stool next to the table.

"You three," Simmons said, turning to Fitz, Radcliffe and AIDA. "Outside. Now."

Fitz and Radcliffe huddled together with crossed arms while AIDA watched with impassive stoicism as Simmons closed the door to the lab.

"Well, she seems alright," Fitz said, with a nod in May's direction. "It seems like whatever it was that was making her paranoid left her when…"

 _She died._

The unspoken conclusion hung in mid-air. Neither Fitz nor Simmons wanted to go down that road. Psychosis caused by incorporeal beings that fled the host's body upon death was mythology, not science.

"You know, there have been cases of patients with schizophrenia experiencing relief of psychosis after flat-lining due to insulin overdose," Fitz offered. "Maybe we are seeing something similar."

"I know there are and we're not," Simmons said flatly. "It's a completely different neurochemical event. And don't change the subject."

"What subject?" Radcliffe interjected.

"Her!" Simmons said, pointing to AIDA. "You know that the creation of a prototype like this violates the sanctions of your hearing!"

Radcliffe pursed his lips and looked at the ground.

"Only if they are done without oversight. Technically, I _was_ being overseen," he corrected, looking at Fitz.

"Only the final stages!" Fitz protested. "Don't drag me into this!"

"How long have you known?"

Simmons's voice was dangerously soft.

"Just a couple of weeks. I swear!"

"And you didn't tell me?" Simmons asked. "After all we've been through, do you really not trust me enough to tell me something like this?"

"It wasn't you I couldn't trust! It was the Director!" Fitz argued. "And after what we've seen over the last few days, it looks like I was right."

Simmons was saved from making a scathing retort by the sound of Radcliffe's front door caving in. A SHIELD tactical team poured in through the open door, surrounding the group with raised weapons. In the midst of them stood Director Jeffrey Mace himself.

"Looks like we have quite a few trust issues on this team," he declared. "Sorry for the dramatic entrance. But the timing was too perfect to pass up."

Radcliffe, Simmons and Fitz stared at the Director, aghast. Only AIDA appeared unruffled at the impromptu siege.

"FitzSimmons, Dr. Radcliffe," Mace paused. "And you." He pointed at AIDA. "On the quinjet now."

He turned to the tactical team.

"Secure Agent May and Agent Piper and escort them to the quinjet," he ordered. "We have a lot to discuss."

* * *

 **Final installment still to come including the Director's endgame and a lil bit of Philinda!**

 **(Have y'all seen the sneak peak of next week's episode? Looks exciting!)**


	5. Chapter 5

Simmons stood at rigid attention with Dr. Radcliffe, Piper and Fitz at her back. The Director closed the door to his office and turned to face them. She could feel the blood pounding from her head to her feet, throbbing painfully with each heartbeat. He would not cause her physical harm, not in front of witnesses. Being terminated from SHIELD was looking like a best-case scenario at this point though.

She had not done anything wrong, Simmons reminded herself. _She_ was not the one who had bound a mentally unstable agent against her will and sent her off to be experimented on at a secret energy facility. She had saved May's life. She had no regrets on that point.

And she was not going down without a fight.

"You know, the middle of a global crisis is not an ideal time for the Director of SHIELD to have to initiate a manhunt for three agents who have gone AWOL and kidnapped an asset," the Director began.

 _Asset?_ Simmons thought, incredulously. May was an Agent of SHIELD, not some pawn to be used in whatever game the Director thought he was playing.

His cavalier tone only strengthened her resolve.

"If you are going to sentence me to court-martialled, you should probably have some objective witnesses present," she said.

The muscles along Director Mace's jaw twitched as he gritted his teeth.

"Do you have any idea what you have compromised with your little operation?" He asked.

"Compromised?" Simmons scoffed. "You sent Agent May off-base to a defunct energy company that has ties with the Watchdogs! A crime organization that is hell-bent on killing off Inhumans! People like you! What were you thinking?"

"Not all Inhumans," Mace corrected. "Just the ones that have been determined to be too dangerous to continue."

The four of them stared at the Director in wide-eyed astonishment. He took their collective silence as an opportunity to explain.

"The American zealots that you know as the 'Watchdogs' are a small branch of a much larger syndicate that has existed in China for over a millennia," he said. "They are an ancient brotherhood that has hunted down and eliminated any Inhuman that has used their powers to kill, maim or terrorize the public. For many years, they oversaw Afterlife, with the aim of protecting and educating the Inhumans who came through the terrigen mist."

"Wait," Fitz chimed in. "They knew about Afterlife?"

"Of course we knew about Afterlife!"

"'We?'" Simmons repeated.

"When Jiaying went on her power-trip and the terrigen crystals were released into the ecosystem, the Watchdogs recruited affiliates all over the globe to help with the cause," Mace continued. "I was asked to join their ranks because I believe in their mission. Their reach extends further than you can possibly appreciate."

"Does it include members of Congress?" Piper asked, catching on.

"Yes, it does," he confirmed with a sardonic tilt of his head.

"Yeah, well, where were all of these 'affiliates' when we were trying to stop Hive?" Fitz snapped.

"Do you think that Hive was the only Inhuman threat to the planet, Dr. Fitz? Or still is?" Mace asked rhetorically. "The Watchdogs work in the shadows. Most of our work goes unnoticed. Not unlike SHIELD itself."

Simmons's head was swimming. There was a horrible chill creeping up her neck and filling her insides. She was starting to feel like she had been looking at a slide through a filmy lens and it was only now starting to come into focus.

But it still did not add up. The Director was working for the Watchdogs. He made them sound like they were a force for good. It didn't make sense.

"But the Watchdogs recruited xenophobic domestic terrorists!" She accused. "Those people didn't care who an Inhuman was or what they had done! They wanted them all dead."

"Mistakes were made," Mace admitted. "Word got out and people joined who were not in-line with our mission parameters. Their funding has been cut. Your friend Daisy seems to be doing a good job of cleaning up the rest of their mess."

"So you joined SHIELD…"

"Because the Watchdogs and SHIELD have the same goal. To protect."

"I think your methods differ slightly though," Fitz muttered.

"What were you doing with May?" Simmons asked. If she was going down for this, she wanted to get all of the facts straight first.

"The Watchdogs, the ones locked up the containment facility, stole a weapon that we were told help with our mission," Mace said. "It seems we underestimated its power."

"So you took her to the Momentum facility to cure her," Simmons concluded.

"We had nearly succeeded, Dr. Simmons, before your untimely arrival," he affirmed. "Your actions not only put the lives of several of my men in danger, but you almost killed Agent May in the process."

"Technically, she did die," Radcliffe pipped up helpfully. "But only for a couple of minutes."

Simmons swallowed and closed her eyes. She wanted to hide her face in Fitz's chest, but stood firm.

Secrets within secrets.

Working for SHIELD as long as she had, she should have been used to her world being turned upside down. It had happened before and it would happen again. She just hoped she would still be allowed to be standing with SHIELD when it did.

"Which brings me to you, Dr. Radcliffe," Director Mace said. "I think you have some explaining to do about your new friend, AIDA…"

* * *

"Simmons is going to get raked over the coals for this one," Coulson said. "It should have been me. I should have stayed."

May rolled her eyes, apparently still more than capable of conveying the magnitude of her dissent while lying battered and bruised in a hospital bed.

"Sounds like you had your hands full," she said. "Besides, you never did complete that resuscitation course. You wouldn't have done much good."

Coulson smirked.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like I was thrown against a wall," she replied bluntly. "Do I have you to thank for that?"

He snorted at the accusation. They both knew the likelihood of him being able to take her down single-handedly.

"I was too preoccupied with keeping my remaining limbs to do any damage," he replied.

May's mouth curled into a wince.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"I've been hurt worse when we've sparred," he said honestly. "You weren't trying to hurt me. I think, in some weird way, you were trying to protect me. Underneath all of that paranoia, you were still you."

She did not have a reply to that. His words seemed to wash over her, unheard. There was something else on her mind. She stared at him for so long, he started to wonder if she had said something that he had missed.

"What is it?" He asked.

May swallowed.

"Simmons said that that thing, whatever it was, is gone."

"It is," he assured her.

He had seen the fMRI results comparing May's brain activity to those of the Watchdogs' that were still infected. He had no idea what he was looking at, but even to him it was apparent that there was a difference in the scans. One of the lab technicians explained to him that her scans were identical to previous tests conducted before her psychotic episode. She was back to normal.

"I still feel… like something's not right," she said.

"Well, you _did_ die."

"Barely," May scoffed.

Flat-lining on an operating table for two minutes must have seemed like a minor inconvenience when she compared it to the days his body had laid in cold storage in the Triskelion's morgue.

"Well," he said. "I've heard that an experience like that can change you."

May shook her head, refusing to find solace in his knowing look.

"It's not that," she insisted. "That _thing_ is still out there somewhere. It had power, Phil. It made me see and think things, horrible things. I have never lost control like that before."

"I know."

"I just…" she paused, considering. "I don't think we've seen the last of it."

Coulson did not know what else he could say. There was so much about the events of the last few weeks that he did not understand. They were working in the dark, as usual. They both knew that the only thing they could do was plough ahead and face the next crisis as it arose.

Having no words of comfort to give her, he settled for squeezing her hand and holding it for as long as she would let him.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading, you guys! This was fun to write.**

 **Now we just wait for the real thing!**


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